assemblage / bricolage / 'the Scrabble man'
click on images for a closer look
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| The Monster Revealed; or, Mr Punch in his Lair | So Gay |
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| Angel No. 6 (two views) | Untitled (Illuminated Yellow Clock Case) (4 views) | Untitled |
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Radio Valve Head (with details)  |
Radio Valve Head II (two views) |
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| Transit of Venus |
The Invisible College of the Fabbicrucian Brotherhood (two views) | House Fire (three views) |
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| Skull-head girl in blue & white dress |
Skull-head toddler with black tricycle (with details) | Skull-head girl on rocking horse | Skull-head girl with toy ironing board |
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| The Aristocrats - No.58 [Thrustface Hunter and Dog] |
The Aristocrats No.59 [Ballerina] (with details) |
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| Well, the thought did cross my mind (January 2022) (with detail) |
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| Angel No. 4 |
Angel No. 5 (Manual Prayer Response Receiver) |
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| Tongue Tied II |
Tongue Tied V |
Tongue Tied IV |
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| Gaze (with detail) | Cartouche | Manifest Destiny (with details) |
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| untitled |
Creation Myth |
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| Words don't come easy |
Portrait |
Sum of All Human Knowledge |
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What's the deal with Graeme Thompson and Scrabble, anyway? Graeme Thompson is a self-taught conceptual artist from Western Southland, who eventually moved to Taranaki in late 2016. His major Art influences are: Dada, Surrealism, and Absurdist drama; Jungian psychology, alchemical symbolism, Hieronymous Bosch; Outsider art; and science fiction magazine art and illustrations. Scrabble Art Graeme's Scrabble art derives from his personal manifesto that Art and Language cannot completely and accurately reproduce an artist's experience of creating art. Graeme has probably bought over 400 Scrabble sets since 2008. Artists who use Scrabble tiles in their works tend to use them to make words or as decorative highlights. Graeme uses Scrabble tiles as a medium. Viewers, used to playing Scrabble, come to Graeme's Scrabble art with expecting a grid structure of tiles with empty gaps; intentional meaning and placement; assigned values for words and tiles; and one uniform set of tiles. Graeme's Scrabble panels completely covered in tiles with no grid structure or gaps, and instead of readily identifiable words (If he does include any words at all), they find letter tiles are sideways, upside-down, or back-to-front tiles, all with different materials, fonts, dimensions, colours, and sometimes they are not even Scrabble tiles, but from other word games. In his Words Don't Come Easy series, he deliberately avoids making any words. In the Portrait series, all have a border of words of physical features we use to make sense of portraits, just as portraits are simply a layer of paint on a canvas. In the Panorama works, wide landscape panels, completely covered randomly place tiles, are bisected by a single horizontal line of repetitions of the word "Horizon". |
Graeme Thompson lives and works in New Plymouth, New Zealand
See the price list and dimensions for his works here.
And see his CV here.
Contact Details
email Graeme at gtarchivist@yahoo.com
Cell: 020-491-2076